the joy of playing old chestnuts

I have been developing a strong distaste for the focus on virtuosity in younger and younger players. This paragraph about violinist Robert Mann's legacy jumped out at me. It sounds like my ideas have been around for much longer (per usual).

By this time, Mr. Mann had resolved to abandon his solo career and devote himself to chamber music.

“I could not conceive of myself playing those old chestnuts and getting pleasure from them again and again,” he told The Times in 1981. “I had not been a wunderkind. I could not play Paganini before I could read Shakespeare and I wasn’t interested in developing a virtuoso technique. The virtuoso looks for two things: those vehicles that allow him or her to display absolute wizardry on the instrument, and capturing that psychology of communication that knocks an audience dead.”

He added, “Those things were not as meaningful to me as the social phenomenon of making music among equals and the fact that, in chamber music, the composer was not interested in knocking anybody dead but in giving expression to his most subtle and complicated thoughts.”


via {ny times}